We were pleased to see New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas join with his peers in 15 other states in filing a lawsuit seeking to protect young immigrants from deportation under a program started by President Barack Obama.

There are now two competing legal arguments regarding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced will be ending in six months.

New Mexico, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington have filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York claiming that the move to end the program is a violation of the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has formed a 10-state coalition that also includes Louisiana, Alabama, Nebraska, Arkansas, South Carolina, Idaho, Tennessee, West Virginia and Kansas that is fighting to end the program. It was that group’s threat of a lawsuit that forced the issue and led to the decision to rescind it.

With the legal battle lines clearly drawn, and with nearly 7,000 New Mexico residents now at risk, we think it was appropriate that Balderas joined the fight.

“I filed suit against President Trump and his administration to protect DACA because Dreamers are just as American as First Lady Melania Trump,” Balderas said, making sure to get a personal shot in first before getting to the more substantive point that ending DACA would compromise the public safety of our communities and put thousands of our neighbors at risk.

If this is to be decided in the courts, then New Mexico should be involved in that process. But, that does little to increase our confidence in the outcome.

There is no question that public support for Dreamers — those who were brought into the country illegally as children — has increased in recent years, and will continue to do so as we meet and learn more about these young people. For many of them, this is the only country they know.

But public support does not make an action constitutional. There may be a good legal argument to be made in support of DACA, but there is also certainly a good one to be made against the president having that authority. It is an argument that was made repeatedly by Obama himself before he gave up on Congress and acted on his own.

President Donald Trump is right when he says this is ultimately up to Congress. His six-month window to reach a solution is far too short a time, especially if he’s looking for comprehensive immigration reform, as his spokesperson has suggested.

Congressional leaders who were on record before as being opposed to the DACA program are now saying they are agreeable to a solution. We don’t believe this Congress has the ability to pass comprehensive immigration reform. If this get bogged down in a fight over the border wall or a path to citizenship, we fear for the fates of the Dreamers.

But if Congress sticks to just the Dreamers, they might be able to get something done. That is still their best hope.